Immunology
Undergraduate · Biology
Syllabus focus
Topics typically covered
Standard syllabus
Innate immunity
- Barriers and cellular players of innate immunity
- PRRs, PAMPs/DAMPs, and inflammation
- Complement pathways overview
- Phagocytosis and antimicrobial mechanisms
- Acute-phase responses
- Links between innate sensing and adaptive priming
Adaptive immunity
- Lymphocyte development and repertoire generation
- MHC restriction and antigen presentation
- T cell subsets and effector functions
- B cell activation and antibody classes
- Affinity maturation and memory
- Mucosal immunity survey
Dysregulation and applications
- Hypersensitivity types I–IV
- Autoimmunity mechanisms (intro)
- Immunodeficiencies survey
- Tumor immunology overview
- Vaccines and monoclonal antibodies
- Transplantation basics (intro)
STEM / applied
Experimental logic
- Interpreting flow cytometry plots (intro)
- ELISA and western readouts for immune assays
- Designing controls for cytokine/antibody experiments
- Reading primary immunology figures
- Animal model caveats (survey)
- Quantitative dilution and titer problems
Clinical reasoning
- Case studies: infection, allergy, autoimmunity
- Lab panel interpretation (CBC differentials survey)
- Immunization schedule rationale (survey)
- Checkpoint inhibitors awareness
- Communicating risk/benefit of immune therapies
- Capstone: mechanism map for a disease
Notes
Assumes cell/molecular background. Depth of clinical content varies by pre-med vs bio major offerings.